One problem that has persistently troubled the fabric care industry has been the problem of dyes bleeding from colored articles and/or garments in the washing machine and then redepositing on lighter-colored articles and/or garments in the same wash load. Several attempts have been made to try to remedy this problem of “fugitive dyes.” Several methods have been developed to address this problem of unwanted dye transfer. Methods designed to increase the affinity of fabrics for dyes have not been able to resolve the problem of the fabric releasing the dyes in the washing solution. Another approach has been to bleach the dyes that are released into the washing solution before they have a chance to transfer to other articles and/or garments (U.S. Pat. No. 5,451,337, U.S. Pat. No. 5,474,576). The use of bleaching agents has the undesirable effect of bleaching not only the fugitive dyes, but also bleaching the dyes still attached to the articles and/or garments, resulting in fading or color change of the dyed articles and/or garments. The oxidizing agents can also interfere with laundry detergent components, making the detergents less effective.
Polymers have been used as dye transfer inhibitors (U.S. Pat. No. 5,698,476, U.S. Pat. No. 5,534,182, U.S. Pat. No. 5,478,489, U.S. Pat. No. 4,065,257) and as dye absorbers (U.S. Pat. No.5,698,476, U.S. Pat. No. 3,816,321, U.S. Pat. No. 3,694,364, EP Pat. Appl. 0 341 205), again with unsatisfactory results. Polymers chosen as dye transfer inhibitors thus far have been cationic, to facilitate interaction with dyes which are known to those skilled in the art to be anionic. Cationic polymers have been used as laundry additives in both soluble and insoluble forms. The cationic polymers do bind with the anionic dyes, but they are non-selective and bind to other anionic compounds in the wash solution, such as anionic surfactants which are present at much higher concentrations than fugitive dyes, decreasing the efficiency of the dye inhibitor and the detergent's cleaning power. They also tend to bind the optical brighteners, another anionic component of laundry detergents. Binding the optical brighteners makes the laundered clothes appear less bright and clean and the consumer perceives the detergent as being less effective. Furthermore, and perhaps most significant, the soluble cationic polymers tend to bind to articles of clothing in the wash solution, then act as dye absorbers, absorbing and then permanently fixing the fugitive dyes to the articles and/or garments.
Recently, the above methods have been combined to try to circumvent problems inherent in the individual methods, again with only limited success. One method discloses the combination of a dye transfer inhibiting water-soluble cationic polymer, which absorbs fugitive dyes, and an oxidizing agent (U.S. Pat. No. 5,478,489). The problem still remaining is that some cationic polymer is attracted to articles and/or garments, adsorbs to the articles and/or garments and then absorbs and fixes unwanted fugitive dyes to those articles and/or garments. Other recent inventions have used cationic polymers bound to substrates to take up fugitive dyes. By incorporating the cationic polymers into a substrate, the binding of these polymers to the articles and/or garments and subsequent transfer of dye to the garment is intended to be eliminated. However, the cationic polymers are never completely insoluble, so the problem persists. U.S. Pat. No. 5,698,476 discloses a system which uses a cationic polymer dye absorber bound to a substrate in combination with a soluble dye transfer inhibitor. The expectation was that since both the cationic dye absorber and the dye transfer inhibitor capture some portion of the fugitive dye the adsorption of fugitive dyes onto other articles and/or garments would be eliminated. Unfortunately, this method, too, has been found unsatisfactory. Using this dual method the dyes are scavenged from the laundering solution, but again, the cationic polymers cannot be made completely insoluble; they are, in fact, up to 20% soluble. The result is that there is always some soluble cationic material that then adsorbs to articles and/or garments, absorbing and fixing fugitive dyes to those articles and/or garments.
In response to the foregoing needs, in co-pending U.S. application Ser. No. 09/973,445 filed Oct. 13, 2001 a laundry additive article is described in which a cross-linked polymeric dye absorber is fixed to the surface of an insoluble substrate such as a cellulosic sheet. While this article has been effective, the commercial manufacture of this article presents its own difficulties because the viscosity of the solution of the polymeric dye absorber is high and if the cross-linker is added to the polymeric dye absorber before coating, the viscosity of the solution gradually builds to even higher levels. These properties make it difficult to manufacture on a commercial scale an article that carries enough of the dye absorber to provide the required laundry protective effect and that holds or retains the dye absorber on the face of the article without having it dissolve in the wash water. It is also difficult to locate or position the dye absorber within the substrate in a manner in which it is effective in absorbing fugitive dyes and yet it is not dissolved or dislodged from the substrate during the normal laundry cycle.